Dual Identiﬁcation? The Eﬀects of English Learner Status on Special Education Placement - CEPA Working Paper No. 20-09

Oct 15, 2026

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This study examines how English Learner (EL) status influences subsequent Special Education (SPED) placement. Using a research-practice partnership, the work links student demographic data and initial English proficiency assessment results across seven cohorts, tracking EL and SPED program participation for seven years. Regression discontinuity estimates differ from regression-based analyses, with findings indicating the EL effect on SPED placement is null or reflects slight under-identification, emerging two years after EL classification.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryResearch & Report

FormatPDF

Pages59

Reading Time2 h 29 min

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Introduction

Research design and contributions

Policy implications

CEPA Working Paper No. 20-09 Dual Identiﬁcation? The Eﬀects of English Learner Status on Special Education Placement AUTHORS Mark Murphy University of Hawai`i at Mānoa Angela Johnson NWEA ABSTRACT This study examines the eﬀects of English Learner (EL) status on subsequent Special Education (SPED) placement. Through a research-practice partnership, we link student demographic data and initial English proﬁciency assessment data across seven cohorts of test takers and observe EL and SPED programmatic participation for these students over seven years. Our regression discontinuity estimates consistently diﬀer substantively from results generated through regression analyses. We ﬁnd evidence that the eﬀect of EL status on SPED placement was either null or tied to slight under-identiﬁcation. Our results suggest that under-identiﬁcation occurred two years after EL classiﬁcation. We also ﬁnd that EL status led to under-identiﬁcation for Spanish speakers and proportionate representation for Mandarin/Cantonese speakers and speakers of all other languages. Acknowledgements-We are grateful for the collaborative eﬀorts of our partner school district and all participating staﬀ. We appreciate helpful comments from Thomas Dee, Eric Bettinger, David Plank and Kalena Cortes. We also thank seminar participants at the Stanford Center for Education Policy Analysis (CEPA), the John Gardner Center for Youth and Their Communities, the University of Hawai`i College of Education and the Association for Education Finance and Policy. Finally, we acknowledge funding from the California Education Partners and support from the Institute of Education Sciences, U.S. Department of Education through grant R305B140009 to the Board of Trustees of the Leland Stanford Junior University. The opinions expressed are those of the authors and do not represent the views of the Institute, the U.S. Department of Education, the Board of Trustees of the Leland Stanford Junior University, NWEA, or the Board of Regents of the University of Hawai`i. VERSION September 2020 Suggested citation: Murphy, M. , & Johnson, A. (2020) . Dual Identiﬁcation? The Eﬀects of English Learner Status on Special Education Placement. (CEPA Working Paper No.20-09) . Retrieved from Stanford Center for Education Policy Analysis: [http://cepa.stanford.edu/wp20-09](http://cepa.stanford.edu/wp20-09) Introduction The effectiveness of educational support services holds tremendous influence on the academic success of millions of public school students in the U.S. (Thurlow et al., 2006) . When such services meet students’ needs for linguistic or disability support, indicators of student success can improve (Berkeley et al., 2010; Morgan et al., 2010; Wang & Lam, 2017) . Conversely, when student needs are unmet, student success can falter (Morgan et al., 2010) . Persistent achievement gaps between student populations who are eligible for accommodationsand those who are not suggest that there is substantial room for improvement nationwide (Albus et al., 2013; Pasternack, 2014) . Furthermore, some students rely not solely on English Learner (EL) services or Special Education (SPED) services, but rather on supports for both a learning disability and developing English proficiency. We refer to these students as dually identified students (i.e., identified for both EL and SPED) and they are a central focus of this study (Carnock & Silva, 2019; Umansky et al., 2017) . Despite a substantive body of descriptive and qualitative research on the relation between EL and SPED placement, little is known about the causal link between the two. Prior work has highlighted disproportionate representation of EL students in SPED using descriptive regression and hazard analyses (Morgan et al., 2015, 2017, 2018; Umansky et al., 2017) . This work has most frequently found EL students to be under-identified in elementary grades, but overidentified in secondary grades (Umansky et al., 2017) . However,

FAQs

What is the main research question of this CEPA working paper?

The paper asks how English Learner (EL) status affects subsequent Special Education (SPED) placement, focusing on causal impacts rather than descriptive correlations.

How does the study measure EL status and SPED placement over time?

It links student demographic information and initial English proficiency assessment data, then observes EL and SPED program participation for the students over seven years.

What do the findings suggest about under-identification?

The results indicate the effect of EL status on SPED placement is null or tied to slight under-identification, with under-identification occurring two years after EL classification.

Oct 15, 2026

Uploaded by Angel